BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

Beyond therapy: Some evil can't be cured by Norman Doidge What, other than our wish that it be otherwise, makes us think that every human vice is treatable by some form of psychotherapy? That this wish is not just naive, but, at times, harmful is illustrated by a recent Canadian study on group treatment for 238 sex offenders (rapists, incest offenders) from Warkworth penitentiary in Ontario. These prisoners included some well-documented psychopaths. All were taught to "empathize" with victims, and understand their "offence cycle" as part of treatment. After their release, it was found that those who had scored highest in terms of "good treatment behaviour" and who had the highest "empathy" scores were the more likely to reoffend on release into the community. Hannibal Lecter Charm School teaches good manners, but not morals. The important study by Seto and Barbaree replicated -- unintentionally -- a 1992 Canadian study that found treated ...

by David Kenney Waterford In his first State of the Union address, President Obama stated that during the first year of his tenure he and his staff did not do their jobs, no plans for immediate action were formulated and even more is being done behind closed doors. His theme, "change you can believe in," was and remains a vacuous, insipid platitude that continues to keep him in campaign mode to this day. Americans are really not stupid enough to allow him and his staff to continue to blame George W. Bush for all evils forever. President Obama has been staring at the problems for a year and owes it to us that he finally rises to the occasion. That he does not may be evidence that he is set on the ruination of America. He signals his malignant narcissism by the folding and dropping of his hands on the lectern at every point. His doing so signals that he believes he has formulated and delivered an absolute truth and to even discuss it would be futile. SOURCE

By pm317 Who fell for these words and voted for him? He played you like a violin, didn’t he? Would you vote for him again in 2012? Words and promises during the campaign were thrown around willy-nilly with no intention of following through them. It was all a masterful strategy to hoodwink and bamboozle the voters. The irony is that Obama warned the voters that they would be hoodwinked and bamboozled but the voters didn’t realize the guy warning them was also the perpetrator. He has gone back pretty much on everything he promised during the campaign. He has developed a pattern of saying one thing and doing just the opposite. If Obama had done things like he said he would and he had a coherent plan that made sense, people would not be opposed to health care reform. Everybody wants reform but they are confused and nervous about what is being thrown at them right now. Obama has been one gaffefest after another through all this and has lost control of the message starting with saying his gr...

By pm317 Caring for disabled children must be stressful for parents. While they worry about their own mortality as they age, they have the additional burden of worrying about the future of their children who completely depend on them. One such parent is Mike Sola, who lost his cool in a town hall meeting with his congressman, John Dingell. Do we blame him for being disruptive or recognize that he is just frustrated with these two-timing politicians? A must-see video below. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ON AN AGGREGATOR - CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE ABOVE VIDEO Pelosi and Hoyer have written an op-ed in the USA Today branding people like Mike Sola as disruptive, un-American and so on. What I see in Sola is an angry parent, helpless and worried. Where the hell is the compassion for his plight? If Obama has answers to Mike Sola’s situation, why are we not hearing it? As indicated in the video, Congressman Dingell lied about an amendment to that effect. But I agree with Mr. Sola that if the bill is wr...

The story that broke last year about the father, Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a basement dunegon for 24 years and she had 7 children by him - as well as the sick details of his letting a few of those children upstairs - got my attention. I can't shake the horror of a father actually treating his own child in this way. I had a wonderful father. He had his flaws but inside he was a wonderful man who would never exploit anyone or hurt a fly. However, my other parent - was pathologically disordered. And my father (of blessed memory), my brother and myself were all changed forever from it. Wrapping our heads around these people there's only one explanation: Psychopathy aka Sociopathy. No empathy and maybe even no soul. The bad thing is guys like the above and scum like Scott Peterson, Osama binLaden and Honor Murderers make news. But, there are hundreds & thousands of them who may be next to you at the check out or in the cubicle next to you. Subcriminal who ...

by Michael Sigman "I'm the greatest man in the world." -- Will Ferrell's goofball character in the basketball spoof "Semi Pro," upon incorrectly concluding that the team he owns will be joining the NBA According to myth, Narcissus became the first narcissist when he stared deeply into a reflecting pool and fell in love with the image of the gorgeous man he beheld. By the time he realized that the object of his affections was himself, it was too late. Even the attractive, ardent Echo, parroting her idol's every syllable, couldn't pierce Narcissus's self-involvement. By getting a line on the narcissists in our lives, we can mitigate the suffering they precipitate. The first step is to recognize them -- especially those with "narcissistic personality disorder," defined in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders as, "A pervasive pattern of grandiosity, need for admiration, and ...

HOW DO BRAINS GET DIFFERENT? by Kathy Krajco How on earth does one "demonize" a psychopath? If 20 times a day you think, "I love milk and all the milk in the world belongs to me," the little pathway of connecting brain cells that lights up to think that thought dumps transmitter substance into those connections 20 times a day. The amount of this chemical builds up, because it is being added to faster than it degrades. This is called MEMORY. It's what we LEARN with. Keep thinking 20 times a day, every day, "I love milk and all the milk in the world belongs to me." There will soon be so much transmitter substance between the connections along that pathway that it will take almost nothing to stimulate that thought. In other words, every time you see something white, it could make you think that thought. In other other words, the connections get touchy. See what I mean? You are acquiring a habit. There gets to be so much of that transmitter substance in th...

How many of these Scott Petersons, O.J. Simpsons, Dennis Raders, Bruce Pardos, Drew Petersons, etc do we have to read about before people get: PSYCHOPATHS BLEND RIGHT IN!! It could be your neighbor, your friend, your co-worker, your spouse - these people all could have a secret life... perhaps not even criminal but amoral - that you have no idea about. None at all. No one is immune. NO ONE. A Boston medical student accused of targeting women who advertised exotic services on Craigslist was ordered held without bail Tuesday on charges that he sought to rob a masseuse, but bashed her in the head and shot her through the heart when she fought back. Philip Markoff, 22, a second-year medical student at Boston University, said nothing during a brief appearance Tuesday in Boston Municipal Court where he was ordered held on charges including murder, armed robbery and kidnapping. "Philip Markoff is not guilty of the charges. He has his family's support," said defense attorney J...

Conscience is considered the seventh sense. It is felt instinctively. For the most part, it can't be taught or conditioned or rehabilitated. The absence of conscience is a non-correctible disfigurement of character. There is no effective treatment. In a word: Guiltlessness. More words: Remorseless, deceitful, manipulative, self-centred, callous, unscrupulous, emotionally shallow. There was a time when the condition was described as "moral imbecility," which still fits. The modern shrinking heads bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, refers to the clinical diagnosis of little or no conscience as "anti-social personality disorder." More commonly, it's called psychopathy or the slightly semantic alternative, sociopathy. M.T., the 17-year-old girl convicted of first-degree murder on Friday for orchestrating - demanding, via sexual blackmail - the death of a perceived rival, 14-year-old Stefanie Rengel, is arguably a psychopath, or soci...

I know far too many people who fit this profile. FAR TOO MANY. I even dated one off and on for 3 years... though today, I don't for the life of me understand why - except that I was trauma-bonded to him, my mother adored him and his mother adored me. Every time I tried to get out he'd scare the crap out of me (including almost killing me at least once and convincing me it was my fault I was in the hospital with a broken jaw) ... I guess those are actually fairly valid reasons but -- all based on FEAR. This article from the BBC asks a few key questions - if you answer yes, perhaps you should dig further. And don't ignore 'red flags' - even if its your friend, spouse, coworker or neighbor you've known for years. Psychopaths don't always kill you, sometimes they just shred your soul and destroy your trust while leaving your life in pieces, and telling you to just MOVE ON while offering no apology. And you cannot tell by looking. - Barbara ~~~~~ Psychopath...

By Gene Messick On 11 December I wrote an Article for OEN about this: Opportunities to deal with sociopaths in American politics Since then, I've been collecting examples to prove my point. Just recently I discovered one of the most egregious examples to date, described in a recent Mother Jones blog by Jonathan Stine in which he wrote this: " Alberto Gonzales: Pathetic? Deluded? Crazy? Short fiction writer Alberto Gonzales is confused, asking in a recent interview, " What is it that I did that is so fundamentally wrong, that deserves this kind of response to my service?" If Gonzales is trying this unctuous nonsense in an attempt at image- rehabilitation, he needs to hire a professional PR company. If he's asking this question in earnest, he is demonstrably insane. As Think Progress points out, the answer to Gonzales' question includes: corrupting the DOJ by insiting on ideological purity tests in hiring; firing US Attorneys that refused to toe the Bush Ad...

Just what we need, another four years of morally insane leadership. Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken. And pretend that the concept of responsibility is unknown to you, except as a burden others seem to accept without question, like gullible fools. Now add to this strange fantasy the ability to conceal from other people that your psychological makeup is radically different from theirs. Since everyone simply assumes that conscience is universal among human beings, hiding the fact that you are conscience-free is nearly effortless. You are not held back from any of your desires by guilt or shame, and you are never confronted by others for your cold-bloodedness. The ice...